When we graduated 6th grade in 1971 we all had to get up in front of the school and say some very depreciating things about ourselves. It would never fly today in our upside down PC world. Little blonde haired Marek got up and said with a heavy pre-pubescent polish accent “I am from behind the Iron Curtain…Poland”

Those words of his always stuck with me. For many years it was funny but as I matured I began to realize how harrowing it must have been and what a relief to escape the grip of the USSR